The swish of long grass and the twittering of birds are complemented by the song and laughter of a group of grass collectors in rural Mpumalanga.
They spend the cooler morning hours gathering long grass from the veld; in the afternoon they plait the grass into ropes at stalls dotted along the road from White River to the Kruger National Park gate in Hazyview.
Sometime in the day an employee from Grass Incorporated Manufacturing Artists (Gima) will collect the lengths of rope and cart them back to a factory and shop at Casterbridge Farm, an upmarket shopping and dining centre in White River.
Gima creates employment for about 500 grass collectors and pays them for the rope they produce. The company employs another 60 people at the factory, where the rope is made into mats, blinds and furniture. These products are sold to 27 shops around Africa and to passing tourists.
Martin Etsebeth started the company eight years ago after searching for a viable business that was distinctively African and would create employment for rural people. His quest took him to villages around Mpumalanga and Swaziland, where he found women producing top-quality mats and baskets but barely scraping together a living because they were selling them for ridiculously low prices.
Etsebeth wanted to get away from the standard tourist shop bric-a-brac and to create quality products that reflected the African culture and that created sustainable work.
“I realised there is so much you can do with grass,” he said.
Etsebeth claims that Gima is the only factory that uses African grass to make products.
“About 95% of similar grass products you find in shops are imported, the other 5% are produced by us.”
Gima has changed the lives of many of its employees. Thembi Mbatha (34) of Mahushu tribal trust near White River has been working at the factory since 1997. Before that the single mother of eight had struggled to survive.
“Before I started working here I only had piece jobs,” Mbatha says. “I thought factories only hired educated people and never thought I could make money out of the skills my grandmother taught me.”
The first design for a mat she created in 1997 was named after her and is still a favourite among shoppers.
Etsebeth plans to build another two factories in the Free State to meet the increasing demand from European, American and Australian clients.
The Free State government has approached Etsebeth to build factories in the province because unemployment is high.
“The [British development agency] Department for International Development has given funding to start the project,” Etsebeth says. “It will be run by the people there, but I will help with advice.” — African Eye News Service